Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The highly important C.B.E. and Polar Medal awarded to Commander J. R. F. “Frank” Wild, late Royal Navy and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the only man to explore Antarctica five times during the “Heroic Age” and the recipient of a unique 4-clasp Polar Medal

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. (Civil) Commander’s 1st type neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; Polar Medal 1904, 4 clasps, Antarctic 1902-04, Antarctic 1907-09, Antarctic 1912-14, Antarctic 1914-16 (A.B. F. Wild, “Discovery”), complete with original ribbon and pin-brooch as worn, good very fine (2) £50000-60000

See Dix Noonan Webb, 13 December 2007 (Lot 1), for Wild’s other Honours & Awards.

John Robert Francis "Frank" Wild was born at Skelton, Yorkshire, in April 1873 and was educated at Bedford.

Having entered the Merchant Navy in 1888, aged 15 years, Wild transferred the Royal Navy in 1900, and was among those to volunteer for the National Antarctic Expedition under Commander Robert Falcon Scott, R.N., in 1901. Still rated an Able Seaman, he nonetheless gave ample evidence of the qualities that would permit him to take part in more Antarctic Expeditions than any other explorer.

In March 1902, 12 members of a sledging party under Lieutenant Charles Royds set out for Cape Crozier to leave details for the relief ship. Advancement was slow and it was decided to send all but three men back to base. The returning men were caught in a blizzard and were unaware that they were at the head of a steep slope. As they lost their footing and slid towards the edge of the sheer ice cliff and into the sea, Wild, who had previously knocked nails into his boots, managed to drag four men to safety. Sadly, Able Seaman George Vince who was clinging to Wild, let go and slid to his death. Wild then took charge of the safe return of the remaining party.

In September of the same year he participated in the South-West reconnaissance to Koettlitz Glacier, and a month later joined Lieutenant Royds's party on its journey to Cape Crozier. Having bagged an N.A.E. Sports Medal for second place in the Toboggan Race held on the King's Birthday in November, he started out with 'B' sledge party under Petty Officer Allan at the end of the month, on Lieutenant Armitage’s "Western Journey" that established the route to the Ferrar Glacier. On this occasion the sledge reached 7,600 feet but did not, however, gain the summit owing to the severe illness of Petty Officer Macfarlane and the mild attacks of mountain sickness suffered by Wild and another member of the team. Finally, almost a year later, he was one of the party which reached 25 miles beyond Minna Bluff in support of Lieutenant Barnes's South-West effort. Interestingly, it is recorded that after these experiences Wild could be counted among those who declined to follow Scott a second time, even ‘after the most pressing invitations’.

Upon his return to England, Wild received his R.G.S. Medal in February 1905 from Sir Clements Markham, and, as Petty Officer 1st Class, was presented with his Polar Medal by the Commanding Officer of H.M.S. Pembroke on 19 December of the same year.

Wild was was next lent to the British Antarctic Expedition under Ernest Shackleton in 1907, when he took charge of the provisions. Furthermore, he was one of the three men that Shackleton chose for the attempt on the South Pole between October 1908 and February 1909. While the party, consisting of Marshall and Adams, besides Wild and Shackleton, failed in its principal aim, the attempt beat all previous records, reaching Latitude 88 degrees, 23 minutes South, or only 97 geographical miles from the Pole, thereby establishing a new “Farthest South” record. During this latter epic, Wild carried out repairs to the sledges and other equipment, and assisted Shackleton in making geological observations. Indeed it was Wild at 6,000 feet who found the outcrop of coal on the Upper Beardmore Glacier.

Returning to the U.K., where he resigned for the Royal Navy, Wild undertook an extensive boating trip, but in 1910 he joined a Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which sailed from London in the Aurora in July 1911. Wild was appointed leader of the Western Base in 1912, where he had charge of seven men on what was named the Shackleton Ice Shelf. They were to have no contact with the outside world for a year. Some 400 miles of new land was chartered under appalling conditions. Wild and the Eastern Party journeyed to Mount Barr Smith, a point just 50 miles short of the snow-free oasis discovered by Lieutenant David Bunger some years later, again earning the respect of his chief who was later to state, 'Wild won the sincere regard of the members of his party, and the admiration of all for the splendid way in which he executed the difficult task entrusted to him’.

On his return from the Australasian Expedition, he was asked by Shackleton to go South once more, this time as the second-in-command of the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Accordingly, in August 1914 he sailed with Shackleton from Plymouth in the Endurance for the Weddell Sea, which was to be the base for an attempt to cross the Antarctic Continent to the Ross Sea via the South Pole. Tragically the crossing never took place. For ten months the Endurance was gripped in the pack ice, leaving the crew stranded without any means of contacting the outside world. Eventually the ship was crushed and sank, and for the next five months Wild, Shackleton, and their 26 companions suffered the most unbelievable privations- frostbite, insomnia and wracking hunger - whilst retreating over ice which had a tendency to open beneath their feet. Fortunately, Wild, like Shackleton, was at his best in a crisis. When nearly starving in early, 1916, 'a strange shape appeared, moving deliberately across a nearby section of their old floe. Wild ran to get his rifle from his tent, when he dropped to one knee and shot. The animal bucked, and slowly sank down on to the ice. Several men hurried to where it lay - a sea leopard nearly 11 feet long. With one bullet, it seemed, Wild had changed the whole complexion of their lives. There at their feet lay nearly 1,000 pounds of meat - Shackleton announced that they would feast on the sea leopard’s liver for lunch.

In April 1916 the shipwrecked explorers launched three rescue boats salvaged from Endurance, and, clearing loose pack ice, reached Elephant Island. From this desolate spot Shackleton with five men made his famous voyage in one of the boats to South Georgia and from there organised the rescue operation. Wild pleaded with Shackleton to be allowed to share the dangers of the voyage, but was given the onerous task of holding the rest of the partv together on Elephant Island for an unknown period of time. ‘The trust reposed in Wild was fully justified’, for incredibly, not a single life was lost.

On the return of the Expedition to Europe Wild was commissioned Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. and sent to Archangel to superintend the arrival of war materials. In 1918 he was released by the Admiralty to take part in an expedition under Shackleton to Spitsbergen, ostensibly to prospect for minerals but quasi-officially, to establish a British presence in the area.

Awarded his C.B.E. in the New Year Honours of 1920, Wild then went into partnership with the Surgeon of the Weddell Sea Expedition, Dr. McIllroy, and tried his hand as a planter in Nyasaland, but the invitation of Sir Ernest Shackleton to join a new expedition proved irresistible and, in September 1921, he sailed South as his second-in-command in the Quest. On Shackleton’s unexpected death at South Georgia in January 1922, Wild assumed command and continued the voyage until stopped by ice 50 miles from the Enderby Land Coast, and after some oceanographic work in the South Atlantic, returned home in June 1922.

The following year he published Shackleton’s Last Voyage, and in 1924 was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. Wild emigrated to South Africa in 1923, where he died in 1939.